The Exposing Students to Regenerative Medicine (ExStRM) Program engages qualified high school students in meaningful, world-class regenerative medicine research. The selected students will be from high schools in South Los Angeles, historically known as underrepresented communities with major health disparities. The program's overarching goal will be to improve regenerative medicine treatments for individuals with unmet medical needs.

The program will provide eight-week hands-on mentored summer research training experience in health areas such as sickle cell, cancer, diabetes, and others, focusing on regenerative medicine. We will provide auxiliary and ancillary activities in conjunction with our existing high school program, which will include training in research principles and the responsible conduct of research, quantitative, qualitative, analytical, and problem-solving skills, writing a scientific abstract, careers in science and research and creating a scientific PowerPoint and poster. Students will also attend special seminars on selecting a college, the college application process, and exploring educational career paths. Importantly, they will learn how to present their research in a public forum at an end-of-summer poster session, which is also open to the community. Our goal for the students is to be well trained in laboratory techniques and to motivate them to continue their excitement for stem cell and regenerative medicine research in the future. The summer will culminate with the students presenting their work at the CIRM Research Symposium.